Thermal Equilibrium
by intrepidclass
Summary: [J/C] [S7] Mandatory hypothermia story. Fluffy and clichéd, as usual.


**Author's notes:**

- marcygoomen and I made a list of 10 fic themes we thought would be fun to explore, and we picked one out of a hat. We drew "hypothermia", so this is my version of every ST fanfic author's obligatory hypothermia story.

- Our rules were simple. We each had to write a story that had from 3 to 5 thousand words, rated T or less. Make sure you check out her version, Exposure.

- This is set after Coda, because there are references to it. Let's make it S7, 'cause I like the post-Shattered period. Oh, and it's true to canon.

- Also, not being able to run this by marcygoomen was a major problem for me, and I thank allamaraine for helping me out.

* * *

**THERMAL EQUILIBRIUM**

"And then she asked me about my dress uniform," Chakotay told her.

"Oh, I bet she did," Kathryn said, with a lopsided grin. "Let's just say it's a good thing the Ambassador had his back to the two of you. What, she wanted to know how you managed to look so good in it?"

Chakotay looked down and smiled, despite her sarcasm.

"Actually, she wanted to know why you had four pips while I only had three stripes."

Kathryn rolled her eyes, exactly as Chakotay predicted.

"Yes, what is it with the Pura? Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution," she began, one hand on her waist, the other in the air in front of her. "Space-faring technology that, in a sense, is more advanced than ours. And yet, the Ambassador asked me three times whether I really had never been married."

"From what I could gather, they worship a male god and his wife, a goddess. All Pura get married at the age of 37, which is when they reach adulthood. Their spouses are chosen by their parents at the moment of birth. It's one of the dicta in their holy book. Goes to show you how technological advancement is not always synonym with a society's willingness to break with obscurantism and gender inequality. In fact, Soki was telling me that-"

"Oh, you mean _Mrs._ _Grebi_?" Kathryn interrupted. "Ambassador Grebi's wife." she said, raising her eyebrows.

Chakotay pretended to be oblivious to her tone.

"Actually, they don't use our honorifics. When they want to formally address a woman, they attach the first syllable of the husband's name to the end of the wife's name."

"We're lucky you didn't cause a diplomatic incident!" she said.

"Yes, Captain," Chakotay replied, using her title playfully.

Kathryn was smiling, but Chakotay knew he had managed to stir her up. He was about to ask if she was jealous, which he expected would elicit a fiery response, when an intermittent yet incessant beep started to sound in the shuttle.

Almost immediately, both Kathryn and Chakotay were in their seats, each interacting with their console.

"We went out of warp," Kathryn said, looking out the viewscreen and noticing not only that the stars looked like points of light, but also that space was no longer black, but a color between black and dark yellow.

"The warp engines are offline," Chakotay said, as he engaged thrusters to position the shuttle at an appropriate degree for atmosphere entrance. "And we're also losing altitude. We've just entered the atmosphere of the fourth planet in the Kretar system. We're 105 km above the surface."

"Go to one quarter impulse and get us out of here," she said.

"No response from the impulse drive. Current speed is 10000 km per hour. Current altitude is 77 km."

"It's as if we didn't have any deuterium left in the Primary Tankage," Kathryn said, pressing a few buttons on her console. "I don't understand. Deuterium levels are at 78%."

"We're going to land, whether we want to or not," he said. "Initiating emergency landing sequence."

Through the viewscreen, they could only see a magnificent mass of white clouds.

"I don't know about you, but I'm getting a sense of _déjà vu_," Kathryn said, trying make light of the situation.

Chakotay didn't respond, nor did his eyes leave the console in front of him, but she saw the muscle on his jaw clenching. He did_ not_ need to dwell on that particularly painful memory.

"The temperature down below is -25°C, with wind speed of 41 km/h," she said. "I guess we won't be exploring the surroundings."

"There's a mountain range ahead, between our current position and our landing site," Chakotay said.

"We'll have to make do with thrusters," Kathryn replied, focusing on her console again.

Once the shuttle was close enough to the mountain, Chakotay managed to use the thrusters to avoid a collision. That slowed their speed. However, after clearing the summit, they entered an area of mountain turbulence. The shuttle fell for two seconds when it entered a region of vacuum caused by the turbulence, and that made its rear hit rock.

The sudden motion propelled Kathryn from her seat. She was still conscious, lying prone on the floor, and she saw there was a hole on the back of the shuttle, the approximate diameter of a Jefferies tube. They weren't so high in altitude that the pressure outside posed any danger. Still, it was lower than the pressure inside, and Kathryn watched as several cases and materials near the hole were expelled through it.

"Kathryn, are you OK?" she heard Chakotay scream over the sound of beeps and warnings from the computer.

"Yes, I'm all right," she answered, even as she felt searing pain on the left side of her abdomen and on her right ankle.

"Engaging the emergency landing engine," Chakotay said. The powerful emergency retrorockets were activated and began to cushion the final meters of their somewhat bumpy decent. A force field was also raised around the hole. "Force field in place."

After a few seconds, the shuttle touched the ground. Chakotay immediately got up and knelt near Kathryn, who had managed to sit with her back against the hull.

"Are you OK?" he repeated, touching her chin and turning her face to examine a bruise over her left cheekbone.

"It's just my right ankle. It's nothing," she answered, even as she winced.

Chakotay could see Kathryn was hurt. She was taking short breaths and had one of her hands to her side, which could mean she had a fractured rib, or ribs. He also inspected her ankle, which was already swollen and red.

Letting out a deep breath, Chakotay got up and walked to the back of the shuttle. He knew they would probably have lost a few items, particularly due to the fact that most cases were stored near the place where the hull had breached. He was not, however, expecting the incident to have stripped the back of the shuttle of its contents as much as it had. The cases containing Puran fruit and vegetables they had been presented with after the diplomatic function were gone. So were pieces of the hull, like compartment doors and small knobs. But the worst of it was that Chakotay couldn't find any first aid kits. No hyposprays, no tricorders, nothing. He could feel himself getting angry, so he forcibly took a few deep breaths.

When he looked out through the hole, he saw the snow was sprinkled with a trail of debris that extended all the way from the shuttle to the foot of the mountain.

"Did we lose a lot?" he heard Kathryn ask.

"We don't have medkits, nor ration packs, nor blankets... nothing!" Chakotay said, going back to the front part of the shuttle. "I'm going out to get them."

As he said that, he turned his back to her. Kathryn tried to get up to stop him, but only managed to grunt in pain, which made him crouch next to her again.

"Listen to me," she said, whispering in between short, quick breaths. "It's below freezing outside. The insulation of your uniform won't be enough. Your extremities will freeze in a matter of minutes. It's too risky. We still have life support. Let's just send out a distress signal and wait for Voyager to find us."

"That can take hours, even a whole day. You're hurt!" he replied.

"You're not thinking about this clearly. Listen to me, Chakotay. I am not bleeding. None of my injuries are fatal."

"We don't know that, not without a tricorder. You could be bleeding internally."

"Or not," she continued. "And if I am, you need to be alert to help them find and rescue us. We're no good if we're both injured."

"So I'm supposed to sit here," he said, wiping sweat from her forehead with his hand, "and watch you wince in pain every time you breath?"

"I'll be fine," she said, closing her eyes.

"Yes, you will," Chakotay reiterated.

Again, he got up, pressing a sequence of buttons to send out a signal with their coordinates on a Federation emergency frequency. Then, he walked to the shuttle door.

"Chakotay?" Kathryn said.

"Don't worry, I'll be right back."

"Commander!" she called out, more assertively.

"Don't, Kathryn," he said, calmly, after which he pressed the button to open the hatch.

Once it was open, Chakotay stepped outside without hesitation. The door closed behind him, and a gush of wind hit him on the face as soon as he started walking away from the shuttle. It was cold, but the wind made everything worse. He tried to shield his face with his arm as he continued to move away.

The first valuable item he found was a ration pack. There was no indication that the replicator in the shuttle wasn't working, but Chakotay hadn't checked it, so he took the ration.

Some meters ahead, he saw a medkit. It was open, but it still contained hyposprays, a tricorder and a thermal regenerator. He looked around for the trauma kit, but was unable to find it. Chakotay had trouble closing the case, because his fingers were already numb. He had no way of knowing how many minutes he'd been outside, exactly, but he knew he was running out of time. Still, a medkit without a trauma kit wouldn't be of much use, and he was determined to find it. It couldn't be that far.

Not without some difficulty, he got up to resume his search. He had to squint because of how bright the yellow light of that planet was, and he used the kit to protect his face from the wind. For a moment, Chakotay didn't know which direction to take. He knew he was beginning to become confused, which meant the temperature in his body was significantly lower than normal. He tried to focus on the task at hand, widening his search pattern around the place where he'd originally found the kit.

"Janeway to Chakotay," came her voice over the comm.

Chakotay heard her, but he didn't think he was in a condition to keep looking _and_ talk to her at the same time, so he kept on walking.

"Janeway to Chakotay, please respond," Kathryn insisted.

That was when he spotted the trauma kit, a few paces to his right.

"Chakotay..." she said, feebly.

He hit his badge.

"I found it, Kathryn. I found it."

Kathryn could hear him shivering.

"You need to come back. Right now," she said, her voice urgent.

Chakotay had to look around to get a visual on the shuttle before he knew in which direction to walk.

"Chakotay, did you hear me? You need to get out of the cold."

"I'm going back," he managed to say.

Inside the shuttle, Kathryn had not waited idly. It had taken her four minutes to raise herself up, and 1 more minute to go to the console. She was tracking his location, as well as his life signs, through the shuttle's scanner. When he was close, she opened the hatch and he came inside.

Chakotay was shivering, and his hands, nose and ears had changed color. He saw she was standing, and went to her side, propping the medkit on the console near her to open the case. He fumbled for a hypospray, but dropped it.

"Dammit," he said, picking it up.

Finally, Chakotay pressed it against her neck and released the medicine. Immediately after that, Kathryn started to breath easily. She let out a sigh of relief. When she felt she could walk without feeling debilitating pain, she grabbed the items he'd brought inside. With her other hand on his waist, she nudged him on.

"Come, let's get you warm," she said.

She helped him sit down on the bed in the back. His arms were folded across his chest, trying to warm him.

"Computer, increase temperature to 30° Celsius," Kathryn said. The computer acknowledged the instructions.

Sitting down beside him, she opened the jacket of her uniform swiftly. Kathryn removed it, as well as her long-sleeved turtleneck, which left her wearing the bluish-gray tank. Then she opened his jacket and snuggled against him, aiming at the transfer of body heat. Her hands were inside his jacket, rubbing his back vigorously.

"You shouldn't move," he said. "You're wounded, you're going to make it worse."

"Nothing the doctor can't handle."

"Kathryn, we might not be rescued for many hours!" Chakotay said.

"As soon as we get your body back to its normal temperature," she said, her hands causing friction (and heat) on his right arm, "then we'll focus on my injuries, all right? I'm fine for now, you're not."

"I'm so cold," he whispered, burying his head on the crook of her neck to warm his nose.

Blowing hot air on the tips of his fingers, Kathryn carefully warmed his hands between hers. After she was done with each hand, she placed it against her lower back, under her tank. Then she mirrored his position, hugging him and hiding her own hands underneath the 3 layers of his uniform. Chakotay could feel the heat radiating from her rapidly moving palms.

"You didn't have to go outside," Kathryn said.

"Yes, I did. You _know_ that," he said. His voice was muffled because he still had his face against her shoulder.

"And _you_ know I would rather feel a little pain than have something happen to you out there," she said.

"Nothing happened," Chakotay replied.

"Nothing happened? Your core temperature dropped 10 degrees! What if you had lost consciousness?" she asked.

"I didn't."

"Then I'd have had to go after you. If you expect me ever to drag you all the way back to the shuttle with a sprained ankle, you have another thing coming!"

Kathryn felt Chakotay smile against her collarbone. Had he chosen to voice his thoughts, he would have told her that he'd go out in the cold how many times it was necessary if it meant she'd no longer feel pain. If it also meant she'd warm him like this, he'd go even if it _wasn't_ necessary.

Once he'd stopped shivering, he began to feel warmer and more comfortable by the minute. Chakotay instinctively pulled her closer by completely encircling her waist, and she burrowed against him, which made him smile again.

As long as they had an excuse, he thought.

"Thank you," she said, softly.

Now that he wasn't all that cold anymore, he was able to focus on other things, like the smell of her hair, which he'd always loved. And then there was that feeling that always seemed novel and delicate to him, to suddenly see himself as the focus of her attentions, exactly because _she_ was always the focus of _his_ attentions.

Chakotay could have let himself be held by Kathryn for a long time, certainly longer than it was necessary. And he would have, were she not injured.

"What do you say we take a look at your ankle now?" he asked, his lips brushing against her hair, lightly.

"Are you warm enough?" she asked in return.

"Very," he said, pulling back and smiling at her.

Still, she took his hand in hers and inspected the coloration of the tips of his fingers. When she pressed a point in the center of his pads, Kathryn saw through the redness there that the vascularization in the tissues of his extremities had gone back to normal.

He closed his hand around hers.

"Let me make room for you," Chakotay said, kissing her hand briefly before getting up and moving the medkit from the bed.

Chakotay helped her draw her feet up and he put the tricorder to use soon after. Chosing an instrument from the trauma kit, he treated her ankle and, because she had no broken ribs, the dermal regenerator did the job of erasing the blackish-purple bruise to her side.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, after he'd restored the shuttle's temperature to normal.

"No, but I could use some coffee, if the replicator is working."

Luckily, there wasn't anything wrong with the replicator. They sat on the bed side by side, their backs against the wall, their shoulders, arms and legs touching, and quietly sipped their coffee. The wind had picked up speed outside, and they could hear the whistling noise it made when it rushed through the crevices on the outer hull.

There was a sense of contentment around them. No orders had to be issued, no threats needed to be dealt with, no examples must be set. They only needed to wait, alone together, peacefully. Kathryn turned her head to look at him, smiling, and Chakotay mimicked her movements. She grinned and looked away before slipping her arm through the crook of his elbow. He sighed contently, and placed his hand on top of hers.

=/\=

They were beamed to the Transporter Room on Voyager approximately three hours later. They'd used the shuttle because the ship was conducting scans out of transport range, but Kathryn imagined Tuvok had gone after them as soon as their distress signal was picked up.

In the Transporter Room, the Doctor was waiting for them and, because he could detect signs of recent injuries, he unceremoniously rushed the two higher ranking officers on the ship to Sickbay.

Chakotay was discharged after a scan and a hypospray. He retreated to the Doctor's office to read the results of the preliminary scans on their shuttle. He also let all senior officers know they'd be expected in the Briefing Room as soon as the captain was discharged from Sickbay. After seeing to those matters, he went back to her bedside. The Doctor was still treating Kathryn's ankle.

"Honestly, Commander," he said, as Chakotay approached, "a blind targ could have done better."

Kathryn laughed and Chakotay couldn't help but smile.

"If this is what they teach at the Academy, it's a wonder you all manage to keep each other alive on away missions before you get to Sickbay," the Doctor continued.

"You could always send a message to Admiral Brand about it. I understand she's still superintendent at the Academy," Kathryn said.

"I might just do that. You're free to go, Captain," the Doctor said, turning off his instrument and going back to his office soon after.

Kathryn and Chakotay smiled at how the sarcasm had been lost on him. She sat up, taking Chakotay's extended hand.

"Did you call a meeting in the Briefing Room?" she asked.

"Yes."

He helped her down from the bed and they let go of each other's hands.

"They're waiting for us," Chakotay said, as they walked out the door.

"And we're both here," she said. "We really need to stop going on away missions together, even when they seem harmless."

"Yes, but... then who'd warm me?" he asked.

That made her smile, and she playfully slapped his arm. He changed the subject.

"Judging from B'Elanna's preliminary report, you were right: there was no deuterium in the Tankage," Chakotay told her.

"But we checked," she said, as they walked down the corridor.

"B'Elanna suspects someone drained our shuttle and tampered with the sensors in the Tankage."

"So much for diplomacy," Kathryn said. "I'll have to contact the Ambassador."

"What if it was the Ambassador?" he asked.

"Oh, that's right. Maybe he tried to kill us because you were flirting with his wife," she continued, trying to keep a serious face.

"Come on, Kathryn, you _know_ I was not flirting with her. You, of all people," he said. Then, in an attempt to dilute what he'd just said, he added. "I was just being nice. I'm a nice guy," he said, flashing his smile at her. "I can't help it."

"Will you have dinner with me tonight?" she asked, smiling back at him.

"I'd love to," he answered, as they walked into the turbolift.

They turned and waited for the door to close. Kathryn stole a side glance at him.

"Eight hundred hours, my quarters, you cook," she quipped.

The sound of his laughter resonated throughout the corridor and was muffled when the door to the turbolift closed.

the end

=/\=


End file.
